Varnish recipe using Walnut Oil?

A very good friend of mine recently emailed me with a status update (I asked how he was doing), and a question!I have some experience with finishes but not this type of finish – so I thought I would pose the question here as there are so many knowledgeable folks that hang out here.

”You wouldn’t have any idea of a recipe for a short oil varnish using walnut oil would you?I want to finish this instrument in a varnish with a French Polish over it.”

In the meantime I will peruse the answers I got from Google and see what I can come up with there.

I just checked this out, I dont know if its already too late… but if you apply the walnut oil straight and let it “polimerize” or harden out completly, you should be able to coat it with another type of varnish, but doing a test would proably be a good idea. I have never tried this before personally but I have seen some post about it here on Lumber Jocks. French polish should work too, after the oil is hardened… the question is if it is really worth going through the extra effort of oiling the wood and waiting for it to dry throughly, and then coating it again. By this I mean, if the difference in the wood color is that significant, if it were handled with a normal Varnish.

I have tried a trick out though that does work, it brings out the grain more than just normal Varnish and thats Thining out the first coat of varnish with some thinner so it soaks deeper into the wood. then sand, then varnish two more times with light sanding inbetween. This seems to work well in my experience!

Nicholas,Thanks!Never too late unless he and I stop making things! I had read about letting walnut oil harden and then re-coating with french polish on a luthiers site. They were quite in depth about the process including the “polymerizing” of the walnut oil using ultraviolet (sunshine or special UV lights), even digging into old documents and recipes for both. It was quite an interesting read.I believe he decided to go ahead and use a varnish on this one and wait until another instrument to experiment.Thanks again!